When a fault occurs, all the customer sees is the lights going out. Inside the distribution company, dozens of things happen at once: the call center phones start ringing, an event appears in SCADA, notifications arrive through web and mobile channels, and the shift supervisor works out which crew to send. How well those first minutes are organized has a direct effect on how long the outage lasts.
We tend to think of fault management as the technical work done in the field. In reality, a significant part of outage time passes while information is still on its way to the right place.
The Problem of Scattered Reporting Channels
In many organizations, fault reports land in different systems. The call center uses its own logging screen, SCADA events show up on a separate display in the control room, and web and mobile notifications wait in yet another queue. Each channel may work perfectly well on its own, but there is no single place that shows the whole picture.
The consequences are familiar. Dozens of separate records are opened for the same fault. A second crew is sent to an address where one is already working. The call center cannot tell a customer that "a crew is on its way" because it cannot see crew status. And when the outage ends, it is unclear which record should count.
One Pool, with Duplicates Merged
The first step is to bring every channel into a single fault pool. When call center reports, web and mobile notifications and SCADA events all land in the same place, an operator can manage a fault through a single record.
The second step is merging duplicates. When a transformer trips, many customers in the same area may call in. Merging those reports under one fault record pays off twice: operations sees the real number of faults, and because the reporting customers stay linked to the record, it is clear who was affected once the fault is cleared.
Locating the Fault and Linking It to the Asset
Much of a fault record's value lies in where it is and which grid asset it relates to. An address alone is not enough; without knowing which feeder, transformer or line is involved, neither the right crew nor the right materials can be chosen.
Faults located on the map and linked to the relevant grid asset give the operator a regional picture at a glance. Following open faults on the map by region and severity also makes prioritization easier when several events happen at the same time.
Sending the Right Crew, Fast
Once the fault is located, the next question is who goes. Here too, the nearest crew is not always the right one. The crew's skills and equipment, its current workload and the priority of the fault have to be weighed together. Moving high-priority faults to the front of the queue ensures that critical customers and wide-impact outages are not left waiting.
After assignment, the flow of information between crew and headquarters matters as much as the assignment itself. When headquarters can see in real time that the crew has set off, arrived and finished, both coordination and the information given to customers improve.
Recording the Response from the Field, with Evidence
How the response is recorded in the field determines the quality of every analysis that follows. When the crew's steps, photos and materials used are captured on site while the work is being done, the fault record becomes a far more reliable source than a form filled in back at the office.
Since many faults happen in rural areas with weak coverage, a mobile app that works offline is not a luxury but a necessity.
SAIDI, SAIFI and CAIDI: What the Indicators Tell You
Closed faults become outage statistics. Three reliability indicators are widely used internationally:
- SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index): total customer interruption duration divided by the total number of customers served. It answers "how long was the average customer without power over the period?"
- SAIFI (System Average Interruption Frequency Index): total customer interruptions divided by the total number of customers served. It answers "how many interruptions did the average customer experience?"
- CAIDI (Customer Average Interruption Duration Index): SAIDI divided by SAIFI, showing how long an average interruption lasts — a direct reflection of response speed.
These indicators are only as trustworthy as the data behind them. If start and end times, the number of affected customers and the cause of the outage are not recorded accurately, reports stay open to manual corrections and disputes. A single pool, asset linkage and field-side recording are exactly what reliable reporting is built on.
Conclusion: One Flow from Report to Statistics — with AKIM Fault Management
AKIM Fault Management gathers reports from the call center, web, mobile and SCADA into a single fault pool and merges duplicate reports from the same area into one record. Every fault is located on the map, linked to the related grid asset and assigned to the most suitable crew based on location, skills and current workload. The field crew gets directions in the mobile app and records response steps, photos and materials from the site, with offline operation where there is no coverage. Closed faults produce SAIDI, SAIFI and CAIDI indicators and regulatory outage reports by region and period, and SAP and subscriber system integration carries the data into corporate systems.
If you would like to see your fault process run as a single flow from report to statistics, contact us and request a demo.
